


An Oath Upon These Hands

by ambivalentlangst



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Broken Bones, Bruises, Fic of Fic, Gen, Guilt, Irresponsible Use of NyQuil, Read Notes for Context, Strangulation, The Winter Soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 06:32:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14889440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambivalentlangst/pseuds/ambivalentlangst
Summary: Peter trusts Bucky implicitly, but beyond the grasp of metal hands there is too much he can't control.





	An Oath Upon These Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pansley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pansley/gifts).



> This piece is an alternate route within the universe of [Astronomy in Reverse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12968454), a fic by [pansley.](http://pansleyfics.tumblr.com) I absolutely adore the original fic and was heavily inspired by [this](http://pansleyfics.tumblr.com/post/174391205732/angsty-idea-i-had-about-your-story-what-if-bucky) post on their tumblr, so here we are. I drew from the content of the tumblr post, and then added my own flair. Set roughly between chapters six and seven of AiR, enjoy!

Bucky remembered someone behind him, hissing a combination of words and numbers that made his limbs lock out as he begged them to stop. Bucky hated, _hated_ feeling helpless or at somebody else’s mercy, but all he could think of was the dingy loveseat Peter slept on and the bag of groceries in his hand that suddenly felt incredibly heavy.

He was going home to make dinner for them since Frank had let him off early. He was going to surprise Peter, who he knew had a tough test that day. He worked so hard and always with that grin of his, it was the least he was owed. Bucky’s grip unclenched from around the food, and it spilled onto the filthy ground of the alley.

Bucky tried desperately not to remember the weeks of murmuring voices lapping at his mind like an unforgiving tide, pain and flashing lights and his own fluctuating consciousness. It reminded him every time it rose to the surface that he had someone waiting for him. He had someone who needed him, and he had to get back to them, but then Bucky was biting down on whatever they shoved in his mouth and screaming even louder than he had before.

Bucky was made of nothing but an unreliable will and the words drilled into his head, resonating garishly in his skull, all twisting together until he could think of nothing but Peter, Peter, Peter and orders to seize and break and kill.

Bucky had always been worried that Peter was better off in a place where the touch surrounding, tending, hurting him was made of flesh and bone. At least there biting the hand that fed him would make somebody other than himself bleed.

* * *

Peter missed his dad.

He sprawled out on the mattress that still vaguely carried his scent, and clasped the pillow that he treasured for the same reason. Bucky had reiterated to Peter countless times that he wouldn’t leave him, and that if they did have to move, he’d take Peter with him. So far Peter had been able to keep up with bills with Bucky’s savings and working at Delmar’s, but he would’ve lived out of the gym again if it meant Bucky would come home safe and sound. He wanted to see Bucky’s arm flash as they cooked dinner, oozing a sense of home as they hugged and made Peter feel like, despite everything, had found a semblance of family again. It was with such racing thoughts, huddled up under sheets he refused to wash and wrapped around an old pillow, that Peter remained up into the wee hours of the night.

Maybe his desperate desire to see his father was what had him springing up the second there was a knock at the door, or what sounded like a knock. Maybe it was what froze him in place when halfway to the door to open it himself, the thing was busted open and Bucky walked in with his eyes downcast and his footsteps shaking the floor they stood on. Peter didn’t care.

He rushed forward, launching himself at Bucky with shiny eyes as he latched onto him and clung. “I thought you weren’t coming back,” he murmured with relief stronger than anything Peter had ever felt in his life, face pressed into his shoulder.

He’d spent so many days curled up on the loveseat, eating junk food because cooking dinner, real dinner, wasn’t the same without Bucky there to tease him about dropping anything he got his hands on or spilling all over himself. Bucky didn’t quite smell like normal, lacked the mingling of motor oil and the cheap soap they used, but he was there even under his vest (Peter hadn’t realized he still had a bulletproof one and decided he’d ask later where it was kept cause that was pretty cool) and was as warm as ever. The feeling of his arms settling around him had been sorely missed, and  Peter melted into the embrace.

It didn’t matter what had happened, where he’d been, what he’d been doing and what Peter must’ve done to make him leave. He’d fix it, whatever it was. He’d fix it and Bucky would at least take him with next time he decided he had to go.

For a moment, Peter was happy. Then, when he tried to pull away, he found Bucky’s arms remaining wound around him. Or to be accurate, just one of the two. The other was snaking up Peter’s back and the one placed around his chest was tightening. It was at first strange, then uncomfortable, and then undeniably painful. Peter gasped wetly, tears brimming at a dangerous pace. “Bucky?” 

Peter met his eyes for the first time since he’d walked in, and saw no recognition in them. There laid only cold indifference where Peter had before seen irritation, suspicion, and what he sometimes hoped was even affection, love. The moving hand tore on past his shoulders and was progressing to his neck, grazing his brown curls in its journey to clutch at his windpipe. Peter’s eyes widened, and for the first time since they’d met, tried to struggle against Bucky.

He didn’t want to hurt him and he wouldn’t, but if he could just get away he could run and find somebody who thought similarly but had the ability to help.

He remembered nights of sparring on rooftops and dodging blows, webbing Bucky up while they both laughed and fought a little harder. That had been on the assumption that Peter didn’t know and certainly didn’t trust his attacker. It was much harder to block a hit when Peter had already set aside a part, a large part, of his heart to the one throwing it.

“Bucky!”

Peter gasped for breath, trying to shove away from where his fingers had previously grabbed fistfuls of his clothes and refused to let go. His grip was crushing him, smothering him from the inside out, and Peter heard the first of his ribs break.

Tears originally born of relief began spilling down his cheeks, edging their ways into the corners of his mouth to wet his lips. He couldn’t breathe, not with the same warm hand that walked dogs and ruffled hair locked around his throat. Peter sobbed desperately, cracked and shuddering and each wrung out of him with every breath he was denied. He couldn’t get away with the pain overwhelming him, with the weakness seeping into each of his limbs and turning them into useless weights at his sides. “Dad!” he shouted at last. A final, valiant effort while the room spun and his chest split open with every second the metal arm increased pressure on it. 

He’d given up on separating himself from him. There was nothing left to do but pretend it was just another night of bad dreams, where he’d crawl onto the mattress and let Bucky hold him wordlessly while his shoulders shook and he dampened his shirt with his tears. 

A fumbling palm Peter could scarcely believe he could still control worked it’s way up to Bucky’s face, brushing tangled hair aside to run across his stubbled cheek. “Dad,” he whispered dryly, coughing and writhing and too caught up in the blood rushing in his head to hear another crack sounding from his own body. “I don’t know why—” 

He didn’t have the air to finish. The world was blackening like a bad filter had been set on it, spiraling until the only thing Peter could see was Bucky’s clear, blue eyes. There wasn’t time for everything, but Peter couldn’t let him snap out of whatever this was thinking he died unloved.

“Dad, I forgive you. I’m sorry I wasn’t—” 

A short, whistling scream that petered out as quickly as it started up. 

_There wasn’t time._

“Dad, I love you.”

Peter was only conscious long enough to see something murky lift from Bucky’s eyes, to twist his lips into a shaky grin before his head lolled in Bucky’s grasp and his legs gave out beneath him.

* * *

Bucky’s hands were slow, clumsy coming off of whatever they’d done to his head to make him obey, but he already had one around his kid’s neck— _why did he have a hand around Peter’s neck_ —and as such, was able to catch him.

It didn’t take a genius to put together what had happened, why there was a circlet of bruises in the shape of Bucky’s fingerprints hanging like a collar around Peter’s throat. Why when he set him on the floor to press an ear to his chest and obsessively manipulate his thin wrist in an effort to find a pulse, his eyes flew open and he tried to shove Bucky away.

Bucky let him, and visibly flinched when the kid went to lean over and cough, and cried out instead. “Peter?” he asked, staring down at him in horror. He was doing nothing but gasping for breath in heaving undulations of his chest, and it scared the shit out of Bucky, who bent down carefully. “Peter? Please, I’m so, so sorry for hurting you, but you have to tell me what’s wrong so I can help you.” 

In response, Peter fixed his big, brown eyes on him and began to tear up again. “Dad?” 

Bucky felt like he’d just had the air sucker-punched out of him. “Yeah, I’m here. It’s not—” God, Bucky couldn’t stand to say the name for what they made him. “It’s me,” he finished lamely. Peter smiled, presumably reaching out with a trembling arm for his touch. Bucky let him cling, shuffled closer, in fact, to make it easier for him. 

Peter sniffed, his face half crumpling before he made it up again, probably so he wouldn’t worry him. Bucky knew his kid and also knew that was exactly the sort of selfless, dumb shit he would pull, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think Peter—dense, kind Peter—would’ve gotten out unscathed from an altercation with the soldier. “Where’d you go?” Peter asked, obviously trying to take Bucky’s attention from his predicament. 

Bucky reminded himself he had to be gentle and didn’t let the hand Peter was holding clench, no matter how badly he wanted to. “Doesn’t matter. Where are you hurt, Peter? You have to tell me, or we’re going to the hospital.” Peter’s eyes widened, and for a second Bucky felt bad for threatening him. They both knew what the hospital meant: questions upon questions they couldn’t answer, documents and bills they couldn’t afford, separation they couldn’t handle. 

Peter whimpered. “My chest really hurts,” he confessed softly, and Bucky wished the faint shame coloring the words was something physical that he could defeat with a well placed blow. 

Instead, he rubbed Peter’s knuckles and tried to fight the guilt threatening to overpower him. “Okay, your chest hurts. Can I lift up your shirt and see if there’s any damage?” Peter nodded, wobbling chin dipping to glance his collarbone. He shivered when Bucky’s hands made contact with his skin, and Bucky wished he could believe that it was just because the metal of his non-organic one was cold to the touch.

It was painstaking work, wiggling the fabric up his back without shifting him any more than he had to, and Bucky hid a cringe at the bruises staring him in the face. Ribs, definitely, heavier on the left side, but the right was hardly unscathed. Bucky couldn’t remember wanting more violently to rip the entire prosthetic off and throw it to the wolves. He didn’t know how he was going to fix it. Things had never been this _bad_ before, not when Peter had been fighting common criminals.

Bucky could have laughed at the cruel irony of it all if Peter wasn’t still quietly crying, lip quivering worryingly. He slid the shirt back down and flinched when a choked sob followed the action, combing the hair out of Peter’s face after he finished, including the strands plastered to his cheeks in damp streaks. “Peter, there’s no way this can be safe to let your healing factor take care of. You’re too— _I_ hurt you too badly. I know I said if you let me check you out you wouldn’t have to go to the hospital, but those ribs could’ve punctured something internal. We don’t have a choice. I’m going to call nine one one.”

Peter lurched up, apparently ignoring the pain as panic overtook his features. “No!” he shouted, digging his fingers into Bucky’s arm so harshly they bent the metal of it. “No, you can’t, you can’t, Bucky. I just got you back! I thought you were gone and if we go to the hospital now, they’re going to make me go back into the system. You can’t—”

He broke off into another round of hacking as Bucky eased him back onto the ground. “I’d rather be separated from you then see you dead,” Bucky growled and hated how Peter recoiled at the sound, eyes flitting to his arm, and then directly to his eyes.

“You can’t,” he protested. Bucky considered continuing the argument but thought better of it. There were easier ways to get Peter to comply with this, and as furious as the kid would be at him for doing it, he couldn’t have him getting worked up and further injuring himself. 

He sighed, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe he was agreeing. “Fine. Just stay here, alright? I’ll go get you some painkillers. It’s liquid, but you’re going to take it, got that?”  


Peter nodded quickly, wincing as he did so, and his voice came out a little raspy when he responded. “You’re the boss,” he told him weakly. Bucky went to the medicine cabinet and pulled out their bottle of NyQuil, angling himself carefully so that Peter wouldn’t be able to see from his vantage point. When he came back to him he put a hand on his back to help him up and had him drinking the triple dose quickly. Excessive for most, but Peter burned off about anything put in his system in a matter of minutes. Bucky had to be sure he’d be out, or at least out enough to be transported. 

As soon as he’d finished Peter smacked his lips a few times and hummed. “Not bad for a painkiller. Just tastes like NyQuil, actual—” 

His eyes went as round as saucers, staring at Bucky, who went to hold him down in the chance that he did anything stupid, which was far more likely than he was comfortable with. “You didn’t,” he whispered. Bucky grimaced when he began fighting his grip. More bruises to add to the grotesque collection Bucky had already kick-started. Peter’s face twisted frantically, kicking and flailing to the best of his ability. “You promised!” he shouted, sobbing hard now despite his earlier efforts to remain strong. “You swore! You said we would stay together!” 

Bucky couldn’t deny his accusations. “You’ll be safer like this, Peter. I can’t let you die because of me.” 

Peter twisted and thrashed with even more fervor, but his struggles reached their apex shortly and his eyes began to slide shut. Even so, he didn’t stop muttering to Bucky. “You lied. You promised—you can’t do this! You promised, you promised, _you promised_.” Every tear that dripped down Peter’s pale cheek was a knife lodging itself in Bucky’s heart, twisting brutally as his kid’s eyes slid shut in time with the kiss Bucky put atop his head.

Not for the first time, Bucky was glad for a bit of hindsight and for using Peter’s computer to look up the number to reach Stark Industries—memorizing it just in case. 

He punched the buttons in on his phone and listened to it ring.

* * *

Peter woke up in a bed with scratchy white sheets, the pain of his ribs eased and fire raging in his throat subdued. He groaned, lifting a hand to cover the influx of bright light. Where was he?

It took a second for things to come back with the heaviness to his body and grogginess he blinked away. Flashes of Bucky’s eyes, frozen over and apathetic towards Peter’s sputtering and gagging filled his mind, and then how he’d held him down while Peter begged with everything he had to be allowed to stay.

All that pleading had hurt. He had woken up feeling like someone had chopped his head off and thrown it back on his shoulders without anesthesia, but Bucky had looked pained and so incredibly _horrified_ by what he’d done, Peter couldn’t stop himself from trying to delay the inevitable. Bucky was always trying to protect him, but Peter never imagined he’d extend the measures he took to keep Peter safe to himself. He shot up like a bullet, gasping as he threw his legs over the side of the bed.

If he was in a hospital then they’d try to keep him there, but Peter was strong and he was willing to barrel past any obstacle keeping him from his dad. How long had he been out? Bucky couldn’t have gotten far, could he? Peter was sure he could catch up with him again, given the opportunity. He began to stride forward but felt a tug on his hand.

Peter blinked at the IV trailing from its place embedded in his skin. He didn’t hesitate to grit his teeth and wrap his fingers around it before yanking, hard. It hurt like a bitch, but there were a million other worse things Peter was willing to endure to get back to the only family he had left.

He got about halfway down the hall when he heard footsteps and panicked. He broke into a sprint, ignoring the way his side throbbed. It didn’t matter, nothing did but holding Bucky to his word. They had games to play and sandwiches to eat and it couldn’t be over just like that because Peter had gone in too quickly for a stupid hug.

He ran as hard as he could, but the weight on his body he’d felt earlier kept him from reaching his full speed and the footsteps caught up with him. Peter felt a palm land on his shoulder and spun, remembering despite the fuzziness still lingering in his head all the moves Bucky had taught him.

The blue eyes that met his own when he wrenched his arm back and held it the wrong way were familiar, though Peter had never seen them in person before. He’d just heard the voice that accompanied them played in tracks throughout most of his P.E. experience past elementary.

Peter would rip out an IV, and he’d go ahead and fight Captain America for his dad too.

Peter, whose broken bones felt worse the more he aggravated them and still felt awful from pain meds, did not fight Captain America long before he was tired and his vision was going black on him again. He tried to slap away the strong arms moving to encircle him, going behind his knees and around his back, but they were sturdy and staunch and everything Peter had never felt less capable of being. “He promised,” he whispered softly, head lolling. Bucky was getting farther and farther away by the second as Captain America dragged him back to bed. All Peter wanted was his dad. 

Steve Rogers stared down at the kid who had been strangled within an inch of his life, who was incredibly small and fragile in his arms despite the fact that moments ago he’d thrown an Avenger down a hallway while heavily medicated. Steve felt his heartbeat as he pressed him to his chest before carefully laying him down in his bed, brushing the hair from his eyes. “I know.”  



End file.
